News

I am all fired up after my trip to Germany and the studies of a few Passive Houses in the birthplace of Passive House design. Along those lines I don’t want to forget to mention that this year’s annual North American Passive House Conference is right around the corner. PHIUS (Passive House Institute US) is hosting the third annual conference right in our backyard, in Duluth, MN. Click on the image below for the conference website. I am signed up for the conference and tour, in case you would like to hook up with me up north. This is the place to be for everything Passive House in North America.

I’m posting from Gotha (Germany) today. Over the course of the last two weeks I explored a couple of Passive Houses and carefully studied the latest and greatest strategies and details. The images below show a coupe of projects I toured, as well as one that caught my attention along the way. I look forward to implementing the recent experience into my current work.

I found this worth reposting since it is a new requirement for registered architects. I highly welcome it.

To demonstrate its commitment to sustainable design and the architects’ leadership role, the AIA Board of Directors modified the AIA member Continuing Education requirement to include four (4) hours of sustainable design continuing professional education as part of the existing 18 hour annual requirement. This sustainable design continuing education requirement goes into effect in calendar year 2009 through 2012.(Excerpt from AIA knowledge net newsletter – September issue)

During yesterday’s speech at the Democratic Convention, Brian Schweitzer (Governor of Montana) spoke at length about energy independence. If you strip the political messages out of it you can find some interesting remarks about energy and the future starting at about minute 5 of the video below. While hybrid cars take the spotlight as usual, I believe that retrofitting buildings, and sustainably engineering new ones holds a tremendous potential for energy savings that will likely have greater impact than the hybrids. At any rate, all efforts are welcome. To truly achieve energy independence, which also happens to solve the environmental crisis we are in as well as create an abundance of green-collar jobs and therefore fuel the economy, is a great goal that I fully support.

I had the opportunity to tour the site of the North Minneapolis Eco Village in the Hawthorne neighborhood today. In lieu of a MinneAppleseed blog at this point I just want to post a link to the project on this website. This is one potential site for the Appleseed House.

Most energy sources’ embodied energy is diminished by the time it is delivered to and consumed in your home. For example, the energy that is embodied in a piece of coal that is used in a coal-fired power plant to generate electricity is roughly diminished by up to 70% by the time it reaches an electrical outlet in your home through inefficiencies both in the production of electricity and in the transmitting power grid. It is important to take this into account when making choices for what energy source to consider for a building. In terms of electricity, I can recommend Xcel’s wind-source program for the TwinCities, as it’s production does not produce carbon emissions. Nevertheless, transmission losses are an issue here as well. On-site solar photo-voltaic systems can be a great option to eliminate high primary energy use. The best solution will depend on the location and solar exposure of your building.
In the Passive House calculations, primary energy is calculated using factors that describe inefficiencies and energy loss as opposed to just looking at the energy use in the building. Passive House standard limits this primary energy use to 31,700 BTUs per square foot of living space and year, or 120kWh per square meter and year in the metric system.

minneAppleseed is the group of do-gooders behind the Appleseed House project. Their website just launched, though still with a coming-soon message on it. Keep an eye on it as it will be following the efforts surrounding the Appleseed House and the community efforts that “grow” around it.
I am a proud member of minneAppleseed.

A couple of days ago I attended an AIA breakfast seminar by speaker Louise Goldberg, Senior Research Associate and Director Building Physics and Foundations Research Programs at the College of Design, University of Minnesota—that is a mouth-full, I know. Louise has done extensive research in the field of wall-system performance, or in simpler terms, ways to keep the water out and the space-conditioning heat and cold in. Louise made a point of demonstrating a Universal Standard (that she proposes) versus MN Energy Code. In my opinion this is highly relevant research, and Louise offers practical solutions for exterior wind wash barriers, water separation planes, air barriers, vapor retarders and insulation—all with research data to back it up. If you want to get technical you can find one of her research reports at this address. I am meeting with Louise this month to discuss wall systems for Passive House designs. Louise is a Ph.D (Eng) and her company —Lofrango Engineering— offers consulting services.
A thing of interest for Passive House designers is the fact that Louise talked about the benefits of wood fiberboard sheathing for stud-wall construction, as well as structural 1.5″ OSB stacked wood wall panels. I have yet to find more info on these wall systems. I think that the U of M did research on developing a stacked wood wall system, so if anyone has a link to that, please comment.

Peak Building Products out of Watertown, MN is now offering Optiwin windows from Germany. Thermally broken frames and heavy duty construction put them up there with the best windows in the world. Their products are Passive House certified by the Passive House Institute but their unmatched R-values of 10 and better make them a great choice for any type of construction in climate zones with above average heating or cooling loads. Optiwin also offers glazing options that allow for passive solar heat gains, which are desirable in heating climates such as Minnesota. Find out more at www.optiwin-usa.com, or at www.peakbp.net
Before I forget, Optiwin also makes a stunning entrance door called the “Frostkorken Door”. Again, the R-value performance is incredible. In recent calculations I found that the entrance door to an average size residence alone can have significant impact on the heat loss.

I have seen a lot of these “Your Speed” Police displays around the Twin Cities lately, and while I think that they are a good idea, I feel that we are in desperate need of displays that tell us what our “environmental speed” is.

Now I know, some people think that we are scolding people by showing them how much gas their vehicle burns or how much CO2 comes out of the tail pipe. Nevertheless, how is one to conserve if he Read more →

The Passive House standard was originally developed in Germany, inspired by American pioneers like Wayne Schick and William Shurcliff, who explored the idea of making extremely energy-efficient buildings in the late 1970s and early 80s. The standard is now widely accepted throughout Europe, following a pilot program called Cepheus (Cost Efficient Passive Houses as EUropean Standards) in 2000, and the Germans are looking to make it building code in 2020. The Passive House Institute in Germany is the official authority of the standard worldwide. It was co-founded in 1996 by Dr. Wolfgang Feist at the University of Darmstadt. In late 2007, the standard was introduced in the U.S. with the launch of the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS). Since the standard has its roots in Europe, all energy modeling is done in metric format. This does not mean that it conflicts with building codes or construction methods in the U.S., as the numbers can be converted to the American standard and back. The important number to remember here is 15kWh per square meter and year (4,750BTU per square foot and year), which means up to 90% less energy used for space conditioning, i.e. heating and cooling.

No. The Passive House has scientific and engineering validity as well as tried-and-true practical success. There are currently more than 6,000 Passive House buildings operating in Europe. The oldest one of them has been up and running since 1991. Many Passive Houses have been monitored and average overall performance proved to be right on the target of 15kWh per square meter and year. The Passive House Institute is in charge of the Passive House standard and it is being rigidly enforced and monitored. In 2008 there are 2 completed Passive Houses in the US that we are aware of, and about a half-a-dozen under construction. The European success and experience serves as a great resource for Passive House design in the United States. Think of it as a version 2.0, with a version 1.0 that has already been tested and used for 17 years.